Head Contact For Kids?

FA guidelines: Children to no longer head footballs during training

Change is commonly resisted, even when it’s good for us, like smoking in pubs.
Children aged 11 and under will no longer be taught to head footballs during training in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
 
So pretty sure this will receive the usual “what a load of BS” from many, but we have been saying this for years. Following leading experts in the UK like Gary Turner concussion expert and former pro boxer who now leads the charge on this and in the USA, Chris N who studies American football and its decline due to this issue we feel somewhat informed and therfore coach appropriately. 
 
The headline is a little misleading though, as its not banned, just new guidelines and restrictions on younger kids
 
Now for us it is a breath of fresh air, we have been writing, talking and educating this for some years now and its a very unpopular talking point in martial arts, but we are not here to win friends, we are here to seek and deliver the truth as best we can.

The evidence and data shows just a few headers of the football – ‘subconcussive impacts’ result in lowering cognitive abilities, memory impairment, lower learning capability, reduced motor controls.

Long term leads to increased risk of earlier onset and more rapid development of dementia, just for starters

As adults we choose these risks, like climbing a mountain without a rope or drinking, smoking and so on.

Kids cannot make informed choices which is why they have parents and laws to protect them and why we dont (hopefuly) feed them haribo and cola for breakfast.

So you can bring your kids along to Function First knowing they are being trained safely with their future selves in mind and not simply putting them through the grinder to win a few medals in the short term with little regard for later life.

Rest assured we did not wait for the ban and forced into something we disagree with, we were way ahead of the curve as the health and future you are important to us.

If you would like to understand more on how we train, our concussion and head contact protocols then please speak to Matt

READ THE BBC ARTICLE HERE